I often hear the phrase, “only industrialized nation…”, as an argument for or against some policy. Some examples are:
America is the only industrialized nation without a national healthcare program.
America is the only industrialized nation to tax gambling winnings.
Canada is the only industrialized nation to not account for the cost of raising a family when writing tax policy.
America is the only industrialized nation with the death penalty. (not true by the way, but sometimes it is stated as only western, industrialized nation, or only western democracy)
Is there really much value to these arguments?
This is basically a shorthand for ‘nations in a similar class of economic development, general poverty level, educational level of populace, semi-democratic government, etc.’. So it means compared to the group of Western Europe, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, etc. as opposed to being compared to Pakistan, Afganistan, Nigeria, Zimbabwa, etc.
As for the strength of this, it’s really saying ‘everybody else (of the same class) is doing this…’. Shows that a lot of people/nations are doing this, which may provide support for the argument. Depends on how smart you think those people/nations are. So it may or may not be a strong argument.
For one example, on national healthcare:
if you agree with it, this proves that the US is lagging behind other nations.
if you disagree, this proves that only the US is willing to resist the fad of socialized medicine.